I don't know all that happened between Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, but I know who I believe and what I hope can come from all of this.
It's uncomfortable to be part of a nation that's judging the testimonies of an alleged survivor of sexual assault and her attacker based on their presentations in a nationally televised hearing. The truth and one's belief in a survivor of sexual violence shouldn't depend on her demeanor, likability, or if she is, in the words of Senator Orrin Hatch, "attractive". That said, the difference in the two witnesses' testimony was stark, and I know which one I put more trust in.
We all experienced yesterday's hearing in different ways and to different degrees. I can't know what survivors of sexual violence went through as they listened to or watched this hearing. I've read articles describing some onlookers' reactions as the hearings unfolded, and I understand that there are some things that I won't fully appreciate or feel in the midst of events and conversations like this because I've never been hurt as deeply by the forces in question. I empathize, as much as I can, with the struggles that my friends have described in grappling with this controversy.
I listened to all of Dr. Blasey's opening statement as I drove to work, and I heard some of her subsequent questioning. I also heard large sections of Judge Kavanaugh's opening statement and the final rounds of his questioning later in the day. I haven't watched any footage of the hearing, and I only saw images from the hearing room after the fact. I spoke to my mom during an early break in the hearing and learned that we'd listened to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings as a family during a long road trip when I was still a toddler.
I listened to all of Dr. Blasey's opening statement as I drove to work, and I heard some of her subsequent questioning. I also heard large sections of Judge Kavanaugh's opening statement and the final rounds of his questioning later in the day. I haven't watched any footage of the hearing, and I only saw images from the hearing room after the fact. I spoke to my mom during an early break in the hearing and learned that we'd listened to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings as a family during a long road trip when I was still a toddler.
I found Dr. Blasey's opening statement credible and compelling. Her testimony before a suspicious and hostile committee members demonstrated her courage and civic-minded fidelity to the truth. I didn't find any hint of a conspiracy and smear campaign, which Judge Kavanaugh and committee members later shouted about, while Dr. Blasey was questioned by the Republican's chosen agent, Rachel Michell. I found the fact that Dr. Blasey initially reached out to her congresswoman before Kavanaugh was selected as nominee to be a compelling reason to dismiss Republicans' uncorroborated claims of conspiracy and that Dr. Blasey was a pawn in a political hatchet job.
I heard the awkward moment when Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein pushed back against accusations that she or her staff had leaked Dr. Blasey's confidential letter—the journalist from the Intercept later denied that he'd received the letter or word of its existence from Senator Feinstein's office. There is uncertainty about how the existence of the letter and Dr. Blasey's allegations became public knowledge, and I don't think the Democrats handled this as well as they might have. I understand Dr. Blasey's desire to have been protected from the backlash and threats that have targeted her since she made her allegations on the record. I don't know how she might best have been protected and her allegations investigated. Senator Ted Cruz's argument that the Judiciary Committee has confidential processes that could have protected Dr. Blasey while allowing her allegations to be properly investigated doesn't hold water. It was during just such a confidential investigation into Professor Anita Hill's allegations against Justice Clarence Thomas that her identity and claims were leaked, which led to the now infamous televised showdown in front of an all-male, all-white committee.
I wish the truth could be more fully known, and I resent the rush to judgement without due diligence that Republican leaders, Judge Kavanaugh, and President Trump have demanded. Senator Jeff Flake's intervention along with Senator Lisa Murkowski and other undecided senators seems to have forced Trump's hand at this point. The Republicans' general insistent haste reflects a partisan inability to accept the veracity of Dr. Blasey's allegations without tying them to larger resentment of Democrats' delay tactics in the confirmation process. That process has been rushed from the start, and I agree with Democratic committee members that their ability to review Judge Kavanaugh's record was stymied by refusal and delay in the release of his considerable White House papers. At the very least, an FBI investigation into each of the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh is warranted. His refusal to personally request such an investigation when prompted leads me to doubt his conviction in the truth of his statements under oath.
When I started listening to Judge Kavanaugh's opening statement, I could empathize with his protestations of innocence and his profound frustration at the impact of these allegations on his reputation, career, and family. If he was innocent, I could understand such a reaction. The manner of his opening statement as a whole, his responses to questioning that I heard, and his conduct since the allegations became public have undermined my trust in his honesty and leave me to believe that his anger and vitriol are a cover of his past rather than a consequence of his circumstances.
When I started listening to Judge Kavanaugh's opening statement, I could empathize with his protestations of innocence and his profound frustration at the impact of these allegations on his reputation, career, and family. If he was innocent, I could understand such a reaction. The manner of his opening statement as a whole, his responses to questioning that I heard, and his conduct since the allegations became public have undermined my trust in his honesty and leave me to believe that his anger and vitriol are a cover of his past rather than a consequence of his circumstances.
I know that any delay is an inconvenience, but I refuse to accept that an innocent man would want to rush to judgement—Judge Kavanaugh repeatedly complained that he wasn't able to testify immediately to rebut the allegations—and not desire a full investigation by nonpartisan professionals in the FBI. Behavior by Republicans on Judiciary and their staff as these accusers have come forward has only deepened my suspicion that they're more worried about what might come out than they are about putting a liar and alleged sexual assaulter on the nation's highest court. At the end of the day, I view these proceedings as a job interview more than a criminal proceeding. If I had the opportunity to hire a candidate with credible allegations of sexual assault or a candidate without those allegations, I would undoubtedly choose the latter. The Republicans have decided that the political context of their nominee is more important than if he is still an appropriate—let alone their best—choice for the Supreme Court.
In the days since the hearing concluded, I've repeatedly come back to the sharp difference in tone and comportment between Dr. Blasey, the woman at the heart of this drama, and Judge Kavanaugh, the man. Numerous articles have highlighted the tightrope that women walk when speaking publicly and testifying. Judge Kavanaugh and Senator Lindsay Graham demonstrated that men still get to shout and be visibly angry without getting called hysterical or being generally dismissed as unreliable. Questions of temperament and impartiality, apart from any allegations of sexual assault, will cast a deep shadow on Judge Kavanaugh no matter what happens to his nomination. His tirade of an opening statement has no place on what the Supreme Court should be.
I don't know what will happen next, if the limited FBI investigation ordered by the White House will illuminate any more truth in the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, and whether the Republicans will be able to push him onto the court regardless of what comes out. I do have a few hopes. I hope that evidence is found to corroborate Dr. Blasey's testimony further. I believe Dr. Blasey. I don't understand how anyone could hear her testimony and conclude in the next breath, absent preexisting political imperatives, that she was a pawn or a political weapon. That said, millions of Americans seem wedded to that uncorroborated construct. One of the best possible outcomes from this nightmare would be an environment where partisans can't acceptably point to politics as grounds to initially dismiss credible allegations of sexual assault.
I also have a hope for our political processes and governing culture. I'll admit that when Judge Kavanaugh was first nominated I felt that a powerful statement on the Democrats' part would have been to reject a stance of I'll fight this "with everything I have." That's obviously not what many Democrats, liberals, or members of the Resistance wanted or what the party chose to do. I can't blame them. It makes perfect sense in the here and now politically and it reflects the real impacts that a continued conservative majority on the Supreme Court will likely have on our country. It's
hard to fire up your base in advance of a heated election by saying,
"you should have turned out last time; this is what can happen when you
don't." At the same time, you don't govern a country by saying I will
defeat you by breaking our government.
I heard about finite games and infinite games earlier this year on The Weeds podcast from Vox. As Vox puts it, "The point of finite games is to win, while the point of infinite games is that everyone gets to keep playing." That idea has stuck with me for months now, and it colors how I look at situations like the Kavanaugh nomination. Our country loses when political parties and politicians are so focused on winning that they'll break norms, shut down our government, refuse to pay our bills, or impeach a president on unsound grounds just to beat their opponents in the here and now.
That's what happened with Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016. It has happened in myriad small and large ways for decades since the good old days when white men could be liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats and there were enough racists and anti-racists in each party for things to function and bills to pass as long as there was a dam to be funded in someone's district. Elections have consequences—I sat in a conference room full of Democrats on Election night 2014 as they lost their Senate majority. Those in power can choose to be bullies and violate their oath in order to maximize their power. As much as I wish that Merrick Garland was in his rightful seat on the court today, I recognize that Donald Trump has the right to appoint and expect confirmation of his nominees to the nation's courts, including the Supreme Court.
I think that a solidly conservative Supreme Court (it's already been solidly conservative for over a decade) results in terrible blows against our country and its people. In just one example, thousands may have died because Medicaid wasn't expanded universally after Chief Justice John Roberts, and a 7-2 majority, decided to interpret the expansion as fundamentally different than traditional Medicaid and the penalties for not a state not adopting the expansion as being too coercive. I recognize that I have a privileged position that protects me from many of the impacts of a conservative Court, and that humbles me as I try to think about these issues.
In the face of unprecedented obstructionism and deplorable governance on the part of Republicans, I think that one of the most radical acts the Democrats could do would be to turn the other cheek and use love and restraint to draw the sharper contrast and give voters a choice between those who would break a government and those who would run a government. Would that have resulted in a conservative justice replacing a conservative justice on the Supreme Court in 2018? Almost certainly yes. But I ask you, are you prepared to sign on to Lindsay Graham's partisan nightmare where Democrats somehow beat the odds, win the Senate, and then hold a seat open on the Court until 2021? If you won't engage in that kind of obstruction, then you're almost certain to get a conservative justice appointed to the Supreme Court, and quite possibly one who's a more overtly anti-Roe justice than Kavanaugh might be.
This kind of never-confirm rhetoric was first deployed by John McCain (to my knowledge) in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. It has no place in a functioning government. Its adoption in practice would be the ultimate finite solution that will all but guarantee an equal or more drastic response. If our country is to endure, we can not solely play finite games with its future. In the end, I feel that Democrats have had solid grounds to demand more information, more documents, and more investigations in the case of Judge Kavanaugh. I would not have wanted Dr. Blasey's truth to go unheard because no one gave her the opportunity to object to the public image of a would-be Supreme Court justice. Throughout the confirmation process and through Thursday's hearing, I think the Democrats could have dealt with this rushed process with fewer theatrics and more effective questions. Spartacus moments primarily serve to satiate one partisan base and rile the other. Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, the apathetic, jaded voter not wedded to one stance or the other dismisses yet another example of Washington dysfunctional hyperbole and further retreats from our democracy.
I believe in Michelle Obama's call for Democrats' motto to be, "when they go low, we go high." Those words don't just matter when we think we're going to win or when we're in power. They matter, win or lose, if Democrats are to do right by America and its people. Trust between parties and in the normal functioning of our democracy are already at terrible lows. Senator Lindsay Graham's tirade in Thursday's hearing voiced what seems to be at the root of Republicans' death grip on Kavanaugh as nominee. When Senator Graham roared, "What you want to do is destroy this guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020", he played to the fears that drive the worst in Republican dysfunction. If Democrats carry out just such a plan, they may carry a tactical victory that has a generational impact on the court akin to what Republicans bullied through in 2016, but they will also have a generational impact on the culture in Washington. That culture is often decried as broken and deplorable, but it needs to be fixed and improved if that ridicule is ever to change.
I heard about finite games and infinite games earlier this year on The Weeds podcast from Vox. As Vox puts it, "The point of finite games is to win, while the point of infinite games is that everyone gets to keep playing." That idea has stuck with me for months now, and it colors how I look at situations like the Kavanaugh nomination. Our country loses when political parties and politicians are so focused on winning that they'll break norms, shut down our government, refuse to pay our bills, or impeach a president on unsound grounds just to beat their opponents in the here and now.
That's what happened with Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016. It has happened in myriad small and large ways for decades since the good old days when white men could be liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats and there were enough racists and anti-racists in each party for things to function and bills to pass as long as there was a dam to be funded in someone's district. Elections have consequences—I sat in a conference room full of Democrats on Election night 2014 as they lost their Senate majority. Those in power can choose to be bullies and violate their oath in order to maximize their power. As much as I wish that Merrick Garland was in his rightful seat on the court today, I recognize that Donald Trump has the right to appoint and expect confirmation of his nominees to the nation's courts, including the Supreme Court.
I think that a solidly conservative Supreme Court (it's already been solidly conservative for over a decade) results in terrible blows against our country and its people. In just one example, thousands may have died because Medicaid wasn't expanded universally after Chief Justice John Roberts, and a 7-2 majority, decided to interpret the expansion as fundamentally different than traditional Medicaid and the penalties for not a state not adopting the expansion as being too coercive. I recognize that I have a privileged position that protects me from many of the impacts of a conservative Court, and that humbles me as I try to think about these issues.
In the face of unprecedented obstructionism and deplorable governance on the part of Republicans, I think that one of the most radical acts the Democrats could do would be to turn the other cheek and use love and restraint to draw the sharper contrast and give voters a choice between those who would break a government and those who would run a government. Would that have resulted in a conservative justice replacing a conservative justice on the Supreme Court in 2018? Almost certainly yes. But I ask you, are you prepared to sign on to Lindsay Graham's partisan nightmare where Democrats somehow beat the odds, win the Senate, and then hold a seat open on the Court until 2021? If you won't engage in that kind of obstruction, then you're almost certain to get a conservative justice appointed to the Supreme Court, and quite possibly one who's a more overtly anti-Roe justice than Kavanaugh might be.
This kind of never-confirm rhetoric was first deployed by John McCain (to my knowledge) in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. It has no place in a functioning government. Its adoption in practice would be the ultimate finite solution that will all but guarantee an equal or more drastic response. If our country is to endure, we can not solely play finite games with its future. In the end, I feel that Democrats have had solid grounds to demand more information, more documents, and more investigations in the case of Judge Kavanaugh. I would not have wanted Dr. Blasey's truth to go unheard because no one gave her the opportunity to object to the public image of a would-be Supreme Court justice. Throughout the confirmation process and through Thursday's hearing, I think the Democrats could have dealt with this rushed process with fewer theatrics and more effective questions. Spartacus moments primarily serve to satiate one partisan base and rile the other. Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, the apathetic, jaded voter not wedded to one stance or the other dismisses yet another example of Washington dysfunctional hyperbole and further retreats from our democracy.
I believe in Michelle Obama's call for Democrats' motto to be, "when they go low, we go high." Those words don't just matter when we think we're going to win or when we're in power. They matter, win or lose, if Democrats are to do right by America and its people. Trust between parties and in the normal functioning of our democracy are already at terrible lows. Senator Lindsay Graham's tirade in Thursday's hearing voiced what seems to be at the root of Republicans' death grip on Kavanaugh as nominee. When Senator Graham roared, "What you want to do is destroy this guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020", he played to the fears that drive the worst in Republican dysfunction. If Democrats carry out just such a plan, they may carry a tactical victory that has a generational impact on the court akin to what Republicans bullied through in 2016, but they will also have a generational impact on the culture in Washington. That culture is often decried as broken and deplorable, but it needs to be fixed and improved if that ridicule is ever to change.
My hopes are twofold. I hope that our society, in and out of politics, can learn to trust women, survivors, and those without power and to be suspicious of the tirades of entitled, self-righteous men. And I hope the politics built out of our society can begin to care more about the success of our government than of one party or another. Republicans' power in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in statehouses across the country is a nightmare for millions of Americans in real, life-or-death struggles to survive and thrive. Democrats' power in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in statehouses across the country is a license for abortion, racial and cultural dilution, and government expansion. It is easy to hate, fear, and fight our ideological and political opponents. It's more difficult to build a more perfect union with them. We get to chose which path we want to work towards.
No comments:
Post a Comment